Free association.

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I don't think they were referring to anything in particular, especially with this event, making him cringe worthy. They're trying to repeat that to their liberal viewership, "this man is not one of us, do not vote for him"

I'd just like to say I'm stunned at the strides both Ron/Rand are making as well as the Libertarian movement as a whole. Doing much more in as little as a few months than what the seemingly only-two party system has done in decades. Confronting issues parties won't attempt talking about, etc.

exactly. ive also wondered how much he really personally supports israel, and how much he just doesn't want to guarantee a loss in the GOP primary. as huge as he is on surveillance and drone strikes, i want to believe he recognizes the truth about israel.

I don't think that eliminating this excuse will change the course of militarized police. Furthermore, states are doing a fine job of legalizing it by themselves. Federally, it is less important than the economy and foreign policy.

A broader issue is the scheduling of all drugs and reforms to the controlled substances act. This is more important than marijuana specifically but still not as important as the economy and foreign policy.

it's also an issue that would gain him a LOT more positive attention from the young crowd and the political moderates. but he needs to wait until he's the GOP elect, then start pushing the bill for more civil liberties. it'd be a smart move because he wouldn't lose republican voters, they're the epitome of "lesser of two evils" meets party loyalty.

I think something everyone needs to realize is that, barring revolution or some seriously bad shit going down, we aren't ever going to live under single party rule. So the question of "If you ran everything, how would it work?" is pretty irrelevant.

Washington isn't a steak, made up of one consistent thing. It's like a soup, and it's a sum of what you put into it. It is going to be a blend of conflicting and competing ideologies. As libertarians, we need to realize that step one to getting in the game is to get some of our ingredients into the soup. Step two is showing people how our presence has improved it, and expanding how much of our ideology is included.

Because believing in evolution may not significant correlate with intelligence? Belief in certain things (e.g. evolution and anthropomorphic climate change) may be more closely tied to group identity rather than cognitive abilities.

Numerous studies have found that profession of “belief” in evolution has no correlation with understanding of basic evolutionary science. Individuals who say they “believe” are no more likely than those who say they “don’t” to give the correct responses to questions pertaining to natural selection, random mutation, and genetic variance—the core elements of the modern synthesis. (Shtulman 2006; Demastes, Settlage & Good 1995; Bishop & Anderson 1990).

Libertarians are capable of being socially conservative if they keep their opinions out of the government. Actually, I've mostly thought of centrists as socially liberal and fiscally conservative, while libertarians try to keep the government out of social campaigns and causes, e.g., centrists say gay marriage should be a legal institution, libertarians (maybe more extreme libertarians) say government shouldn't be involved in marriage. Correct me if I'm wrong.

I don't mean to speak for the entire libertarian movement, but in my opinion as a libertarian the government should not be involved in marriage in the way it currently is.

In the view of the government all that really changes when you get married is your taxes. Why should the The moral/religious side of marriage come into play? Isn't that a violation of the separation of church and state? Why does the government get to dictate that the tax breaks given to married couples only apply to heterosexual people?

I'm on your side, and we can probably agree that there should not be an incentive to get married. I don't know if I'd call it a violation of separation of church and state, but it's definitely pandering to a particular faction of society that really pushes the Mom + Dad + 3 Kids + 2 Cars + 1 House model for the "American Dream." However, I can't really recall anyone getting married to get the tax incentives, so they're failing miserably if that's their goal. Marriage is about love, everything else the government does is pandering.

Thanks for the information. I feel like this is an exception though, and normal civilians don't feel the benefits nearly as much as a military couple would (Seeing as most private companies don't care whether or not you're married when figuring your salary). I would love to be shown I was wrong again, though.

There is also custody of kids if you are deceased, and a few more that people consider rather important. Not that they couldn't be handled by a simple contract rather than through government sanctioned marriage, but that's someone else the current institution does.

But this is all about contractual stuff. As far as the government has to be concerned with marriage, it should only be to recognize a contract between two or more people. It should have nothing to do with who those people are, what their beliefs are, how many of them there are. All government needs to do (as long as they are doing anything) is to recognize the relationship and enforce the contract if something along those lines comes up later (divorce, death, children etc...)

If the spiritual nature of marriage is important, then go to your church and get married. If the church does not want to perform the ceremony because it does not meet their requirements (for example if they, as a church, do not want to recognize polygamy, or whatever, that is between you and your church). The spiritual part should be for people that have this need, but the contract part, the part the state needs to recognize, should be available for anyone, so long as they are all consenting adults.

Why would he do that? The party gives him a certain amount of legitimacy while not limited his voice. See Justin Amash for example. As someone from Michigan, I can assure you that if Amash didn't have a (R) next to his name, he wouldn't get elected. Even though Amash is a Republican, he has consistently voted libertarian and has become even more popular.

Look in the mirror, ask yourself who taught you that the government has the authority to steal from you and call it taxes, who taught you that voting means "you are the government", who taught you that the government is here to help its citizens.

You are nothing more than a tax slave for the ruling class, assuming you are on the "being taxed" end of the spectrum and not the "voting for handouts" end.

Anyone paying the least bit of attention can see the scam for what it is. ie. Tax the fuck out of everyone you can, and print money to make up the slack. Regulate small businesses out of existence so only the established giants can comply. Then pay out enough in "entitlements" to keep the plebs from rolling out the guillotine, while filtering the rest into your own and your friends pockets.

I'm sure you'll have some witty reply about tin foil hats or "how will we pay for the roads" or some other useless non-reply.